Right now there are six non-import DB's on the Roster
-Sandy Beveridge
-Phil Gauthier
-Michael Roberts
-Jason Nedd
-Sasha Glavic
-Nick Kordic
Some will be on the team for special teams at least, but can any of these six step in and play FS like it needs to be played. I'm having my doubts, and starting to think Dylan Barker might be a good draft pick after all.
Can we play five imports in the secondary? I'm leaning that way.
I like Beveridge, Gauthier, Kordic, and Glavic. Any one of them I feel CAN be that starting FS. Perhaps not at this moment in time, but the potential is there. Will adding another "potential starter" really fix our problem? I don't think so.
Also, considering we havent seen some of these guys play since last TC, I don't think we're in a position to judge.
I also think that Giguere is the best athlete in the draft and is probably our safest pick. You know, Canadian DBs are hard to find -- but Canadian receivers tend to be the better gamble.
I agree with the above GIGUERE would turn
out to be more productive as a starter
than a non-import DB.
I think we should go with 5 imports in the
secondary.
How about this for a possible trade:
Ticats flip the #1 overall pick to Edmonton, who may want Barker.
In turn, Hamilton gets a quality starter (I'm thinking a player like DT Ron Warner, LB Shabazz or DB Buhl), and Edmonton's first round pick (2nd overall), which we use to take Giguere. Then we go on to take Daryl Stephenson to back up Lumsden with our second round pick.
That outcome would help our O and D.
And by the way, Gauthier, Beveridge, Nedd, Roberts and Kordic will never start on a team managed by Obie. In fact, they will be lucky if they don't get cut in camp.
After your trade proposal, there is no way I’m going to trust your judgement on what a real GM’s team will look like.
Why would Edmonton give up a “quality starter” and the second overall pick to move up ONE position and not get anything else??
Because Barker is a highly skilled, physically-gifted Canadian safety who can start right away and play well with any CFL team for 5-8 years. In other words, he is a very valuable commodity, and would demand appropriate compensation if a trade were made.
But hey, if we take Barker instead of trading the pick, that would be ok with me too…for all of the reasons I stated above.
If you look over the roster, the team doesn't have enough quality Canadians to start elsewhere that they can go with 5 imports in the secondary. If they did, they'd have to weaken themselves somewhere else. At the very least, they'll have to start at least one Canadian in the secondary.
As for the trade suggestion, in my conservative world a guy coming out of the CIS is an unknown quantity regardless of what his college credentials are. Until they have at least a full CFL season under their belts, I wouldn't bet a nickel on how good they'll be as pros.
An Argo-Cat fan
So why would all those other NI DBs not start on an Obie team (and I tend to agree since it may be pencilling in at certain positions over real competition), yet Barker would? Barker might be a very good CFL safety prospect- might even be able to play at OLB too - but is he that highly rated that he’s going to be given a very good chance to start right away? - not sure he’d be better than Beveridge right away, and like to see what Nedd or Glavic could do in some real honest competition for the job as well.
The Ticats passed on Tad Crawford - maybe as good or better a safety prospect as Barker - in last year’s draft to take 2 O-linemen (Rempel & Ince) who I doubt ever start for this team. That was a big mistake IMO - could have taken just one of those linemen and still got Crawford - who I bet will be a solid to star safety in the CFL down the road, just like Barker might.